Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

Straw Dogs challenges assumptions about what it is to be human, arguing that they are delusions based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs. John Gray's work explores how the world and human life look once humanism has been abandoned, leading the reader to question their deepest-held beliefs.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 17 August 2023
Publisher: Granta Publications Ltd

'Powerful and brilliant ... Straw Dogs challenges all our assumptions about what it is to be human, and convincingly shows that most of them are delusions.' J. G. BallardFrom Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world. In his radical work of philosophy John Gray sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human.Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism enthrone humankind as a species whose destiny is to transcend natural limits and conquer the Earth. Even in the present day, despite Darwin's discoveries, nearly all schools of thought take as their starting point the belief that humans are radically different from other animals.John Gray argues that this belief in human difference is a dangerous illusion and explores how the world and human life look once humanism has been finally abandoned. The result is an exhilarating, sometimes disturbing book that leads the reader to question our deepest-held beliefs.

Weight: 190g
Dimension: 198 x 128 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781803510088